Saturday, May 12, 2012

As
a child I almost always cheered for the “bad” guy. When watching
He-Man, I wanted Skeletor
to win; I could not stand Tweety Bird or Jerry Mouse, or the Road
Runner, for that matter; I always preferred the “mean” cats and
the “wild” coyote. This is also why I never really enjoyed James
Bond except in those films where the special-agent showed his
vulnerable side, such as On her Majesty's Secret Service
(Lazenby's first and only foray) and the more recent Casino Royale.

Why?
Because I find the good guys generally boring. They are too perfect
and not all that human in my view, so I cannot fully relate to them
nor find them interesting in any discernible way. At least, the bad
guys have some weaknesses - if you want to call being evil a
weakness, that is - and more importantly, they more often than not
lose out.

This
sympathy for those who show signs of weakness can be extended to
various areas of life. For example, Nietzsche's idea of the Superhuman, the Übermensch, I find too bland. What is the
point of such perfection since there is nothing to improve upon. With
the exception of art perhaps, perfection means death and stagnation
since what is already perfect cannot -- and has no need for --
change. On the other hand, flaws make the person endearing, strange
as it may sound.

On
the flip side those who claim to have no weaknesses are blatant liars
or hypocrites. Take womanizers, for instance. They (or so they claim)
always get the girls and “play” them as if they were their toy or
piano. The word rejection is not in their repertoire, and they
(supposedly) laugh in the face of failure.

Such
people generally speaking strike me as dishonest. I believe half of
them may be actually gay, while the other half may be simply deluding
themselves. In reality, they must be unhappy or feel unfulfilled deep
inside and would most likely prefer a constant and life-long
companion instead of another pointless “one-night stand.”

So
who would be heroes to me? I must say I do like Batman and Optimus
Prime, but in general I prefer those heroes that have an Achilles'
heel, such as, well, Achilles or Siegfried with his soft (mortal)
spot on his back. They may be strong, but they are not invincible;
moreover, they are mortal. This is something that I can identify with
more than those who can survive anything and where there is very
little at stake for them.

Now
at the point of sounding a bit pretentious, my heroes are those who
turn what is seen as weakness into strength. That is good old
Mahatma, the frail little man who stood up against the powerful and
mighty British army and still won. It is Jesus whose cheek already
read turned the other side to receive the next blow like a man! Yes,
those who are “soft” (the gentle in gentleman) and
nonviolent, often mistakenly perceived as weak, are the real heroes
out there. So don't tell your friend to suck it up like a man
because it is their so-called weakness that makes them heroic, at
least in my mind.

And
to add here, one of my soft spots are the downtrodden and
misunderstood, especially those who suffer from unrequited love. The
ones who don't get the girl will at least - consolation prize - have
my full sympathy. I can, from previous personal experience, relate to
them; their failure in romance makes them so much more heroic and
turns them into a living poet regardless if they turn to writing or
not.

But
to be perfectly honest, my sympathy for so-called losers may have a
self-serving bias. When you see somebody who is worse off than you,
there is a certain kind of comfort. Not in a blatant finger-pointing,
“ha-ha” manner of course. One may feel superior, but it is also
strangely reassuring since all things considered, we may be slightly
better off than them.

However,
I like to believe that the “poor losers” strike a compassionate
chord within me. Not included are those who are losers but
think or try to convince themselves that they are very special; they
elicit mostly laughter. Yet when it comes to the genuine
losers, their humanity makes them not only vulnerable but gives them a touch of
honesty and dignity. For those I wish the best and hope that despite
not having succeeded in their endeavor, they will find the incentive and push to get it right the next time around.

5 comments:

Your post deserves a more thoughtful response than the one which I'm about to give you; but just as you have a soft spot for losers, I have a soft spot for instant blurted-out reactions.

So here goes. I wanted to say, "Arash, you have watched the wrong movies, that's all. In real life there is no out-and-out hero. It's a pernicious convention not to be found in Homer or even the daddy of all epics, Gilgamesh."

But I know your influences are not that shallow, because you mention Nietzsche - and anyway I know you as much as a committed reader of your blog can read you.

May I put another thought before you? one that came to me whilst I was digging in the garden this morning, marvelling at the intelligence of Nature, and its worthiness to be worshipped.

It occurred to me that the idea of the Lord God of Israel gained dominance only through the power it bestowed to inspire its adherents into laying waste every enemy of Israel; and not through any intrinsic good, or any intrinsic evil in, say, the Philistines. The powerful always portray themselves as good, and their enemies as evil. The stronger and more threatening the enemy, the greater the evil.

Better to worship the spirits of the stream and lake, the Sun and Moon & be at peace. Or be like the old African tribes (before the introduction of Christianity, firearms, firewater and venereal disease) who didn't consider the stealing of the other tribes' cattle as evil, but just a thing that young men do, and an excuse for a neat little war with spears.

Well, this reminds me a bit of the idea of the "God of carnage," or even survival of the fittest, regardless of the (Machiavellian) means. It is all, in a manner of speaking, about perspective where fair may be foul and foul fair.

And yes indeed, before the age of 12 I did watch wrong movies, which is exactly why I used to prefer the more complex and well-rounded "evil" characters over the dull one-sided "heroes."

Or even take "Paradise Lost" where I found the antagonist more interesting than the rest of the lot.

Thank you for being a committed reader! I often wonder and muse about how I would be perceived and projected in cyberspace based on my blog only...

Thanks, Ben! You know that didn't really occur to me, so much more sympathy for poor Skeletor then!

And well what does stick out with the so-called "Master of the Universe" is his awful hair-cut! I mean if you got all the powers of the universe, can you not at least get a decent one? (By the way, my next post is actually on hair-cuts!)

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